The R699 headache continues

14.07.2014

THE recent R699 per month car scheme has left many motorists devastated, as victims risk losing their cars… and more.

Share:

The man at the centre of the debacle is one, Albert Venter, who - from what seems to be the case - lives a rather lavish lifestyle. Besides driving an affordable R699 per month vehicle, he has quite the choice of vehicles, a Ferrari, Porsche Cayenne Turbo S and a Maserati Spyder - to name but a few.

The Satinsky venture began in 2006 and evolved into the R699 per month scheme in 2008, which is now on the brink of collapse.

Selling an average of 800 cars a month, the scheme has left consumers driving their cars on borrowed time after the Satinsky Group ended its partnership with Blue Lakes (an advertising company in Hong Kong). This has left many disgruntled drivers without the monthly advertising earnings, which assisted them in funding their vehicles.

Disturbingly, financing of vehicles for Satinsky was underwritten by three large South African banks, and it was only Wesbank who issued a warning, stating that consumers should avoid the deals completely.

Everyone is asking the same question: how did certain people qualify for financing? Credit information is inaccurate and cars are sold as new, with differing registration histories.

It’s reported that customers who buy a car through the Satinsky scheme sign two contracts. The first makes them responsible for paying the bank back, in full, over the financed period and the second, revealing they’d get paid a monthly “advertising fee” for hosting the advertising stickers on their cars.

The problem is, with the advertising deal now out of the picture, those consumers need to find other ways in which to subsidise the instalment.

However, since the collapse of the scheme, customers are looking to banks for help, but it seems a lot of consumers’ monthly expenses were reduced in order to get the vehicle loans approved.

Sadly, many financial institutions weren’t involved in the agreement between Satinsky and customers, but the onus still falls on the consumer to pay the instalment amount as signed for in the bank’s finance contract.

It seems like there’s very little recourse for those affected and with no comments from the banks at this time, motorists are still left in the dark.

Article written by Autodealer
14.07.2014

Comments

You have an opportunity to be the first by writing a comment about this article. Ask a question or share your opinion!